Day: January 23, 2018

Google promised $20 million to the first private company that could land on the moon, roll around a few hundred meters, and then beam the achievement back to Earth. But it looks like none of the competing companies have landed on that sweet lunar surface—and Google isn’t going to give them more time.

“Google does not have plans at this time to extend the deadline again; however, we are so thrilled with the progress made by these teams over the last ten years,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC on Monday. The current deadline is set for March 31st of this year—just 68 days from today.

Google’s Lunar Xprize challenge, announced more than a decade ago, had narrowed down to four finalists. But according to multiple unidentified sources who spoke to CNBC, of the final four, one didn’t have enough funding and the remaining three weren’t yet ready to launch.

An Israeli nonprofit, SpaceIL had a launch contract since the end of 2015 and planned to launch a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the second half of last year. But the organization was $7.5 million short, according to CNBC, needing the funds to continue paying for the launch contract, spacecraft, team members, and partners. SpaceIL CEO Eran Privman told CNBC his team just needs a bit more time. “Give us another few months—until the end of 2018,” he said.

The other finalist teams are TeamIndus, Synergy Moon, and Moon Express, none of which are reportedly in a position to launch before March 31st. Despite no team winning Google’s prize, some of the participants still see an upside to the competition.

“The Google Lunar Xprize has done a great job inspiring teams worldwide to shoot for a dream thought only within the reach of governments, while bringing a focus back to the Moon as an important destination for expansion as a multi-world species,” Bob Richards, founder and CEO of Moon Express, one of the final four companies, told Gizmodo in January of last year. Moon Express still has plans to launch its spacecraft next year but is reportedly not prioritizing Lunar Xprize’s competition.

It’s unclear why Google has decided not to once again extend the deadline for its literal moonshot—the company has extended it on two other occasions in the past. It was originally set for 2012, which was then pushed to 2014, which was pushed again to this year. We have reached out to Google for comment on why it’s no longer extending the Lunar Xprize deadline.

Donald Trump’s administration announced on Monday it would be imposing a 30 percent tariff on foreign-made solar panels, sparking warnings that the new regulations are a blow to alternative energy adoption across the U.S.

Per CNBC, the tariffs could cause a massive shift amid the next few years across the $29 billion industry, which the Department of Labor says accounts for some 370,000 U.S. jobs. China and other countries produce huge numbers of relatively low-cost solar panels that would suddenly become more expensive to import to the U.S. after the tariffs go into effect:

A 30 percent tariff would be applied to imported solar modules and cells in the first year. In the subsequent three years, that number would decrease to 25 percent, then 20 percent and then 15 percent.

The idea of tariffs sharply divides the U.S. solar industry. American panel manufacturers support tariffs, since they would cut competition from cheap Chinese imports. U.S. panel installers oppose them because fewer Chinese imports mean less work putting them in place.

The first 2.5 gigawatts of imported solar cells will be exempt from the tariffs annually. But “less work putting them in place” is the key word here, because while imposing the tariffs may protect some U.S. jobs, they will make the technology less accessible throughout the country. In the past few years, those cheap panels have fueled a boom in domestic solar adoption, per the New York Times:

Currently, more than 95 percent of America’s solar panels are imported, with half of those imports coming from Malaysia and South Korea.

While that global production frenzy has hurt American solar manufacturers, it has been a boon to those who want to buy solar power. The average cost of solar installations in the United States has fallen 70 percent since 2010, from $7.50 per watt down to around $1 per watt.

As Bloomberg reported in September, developers have been buying up as many panels as possible in advance since May, “after bankrupt panel manufacturer Suniva Inc. filed a trade complaint asking for protection from cheap imports.” The U.S. International Trade Commission later ruled in that company’s favor, setting up the conditions for Trump to impose the tariffs now.

According to CNBC, the Solar Energy Industries Association said in a statement that the solar tariffs could cost 23,000 jobs in 2018 and delay or terminate “billions of dollars in solar investments.” Just 14 percent of U.S. jobs in solar are in manufacturing, per Reuters, and the installation services which employ many of the remainder are sweating in anticipation of a major reduction in orders.

Trump’s order will also impact washing machines, which are subject to tariffs as high as 50 percent, per the BBC. Together, the rules are the president’s most extensive moves on trade other than his earlier attempt to back out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement. According to the New York Times, however, administration officials say this is just the first step in a larger protectionist policy shift that see Trump “imposing tariffs ranging from 15 percent to 50 percent on various imports.”

[CNBC]